Drawing in a deep breath, Nancy looked up at the crude concrete ceiling of the ammo bunker in an effort to keep a tear of self-pity from streaking down her cheek. As difficult as it had been for her to maintain a steady relationship with a man while in the service, she found that it was near impossible on the outside. In all her wildest fantasies, she had never stopped to consider that most men were intimidated by her. While it was true that she could dress down an errant subordinate with the best of her male counterparts, it was equally true that she could be friendly, understanding, and rather compassionate. None of those qualities, however, were given a second look by a date as soon as they found out that she had been an officer in the Army. A few of her male friends tried valiantly to ignore this side of Nancy Kozak’s character. Few, however, were able to forget that she was a woman whose views were, as one uncharitable bastard once pointed out, “more macho than John Wayne in his prime.”

Looking around once again, Nancy studied the silent boxes of ammunition and explosives sitting patiently in this bunker, awaiting the day when they would be issued out for use in a training exercise. Her life, she thought as she wiped her eyes, was pretty much like that. Without a career or a mate to help her along, she was waiting, waiting for someone, or something, to come along and save her from her own, self-imposed limbo.

From behind her the voices of the soldiers who were assigned to assist in the inventory could be heard as they came through the open door of the bunker. Specialist Chester West, with a booming voice and western drawl, dominated. As was his habit, West was working hard to convince another of the party that he was right. “There simply is no way in hell, I tell you,” he thundered over his shoulder as he came through the door, “that the FBI, the CIA, or the Secret Service are going to find anything on our boys. T’ain’t no way, I say.”

The object of this verbal barrage, Private David Tillman, followed West through the door with head bowed and shoulders slumped forward. “All I said,” Tillman offered in his own defense, “was that things don’t look too good for the six militiamen.”

“Well,” West countered as he came up to where Nancy now stood, “it would be one hell of a serious mistake to count them down and out while GO’s in the governor’s mansion.”